Politics this week

Blair's Britain

EPA

Tony Blair's Labour Party won Britain's general election by a landslide, in one of the biggest poll victories in Britain this century.

The first round of elections for about a fifth of Italy'slocal councils resulted in the loss of Milan for the separatist Northern League. The unreformed Refounded Communists showed they still have enough support to hamper reforms.

Necmettin Erbakan, Turkey's Islamist prime minister, was again told by secular-minded generals to curb Islamic influence in the civil service and schools.

European Union governments agreed to suspend “critical dialogue” and ministerial ties with Iran, but took no steps on trade and agreed that ambassadors—withdrawn in April because of state-sponsored murder by Iranians in Germany in 1992—could go back, if their government wanted them to. Iran, amid a flurry of abuse, said Germany's and Denmark's were not welcome.

As France's general-election campaign got under way, the ruling centre-right coalition promised to cut taxes and government spending. The opposition Socialists and Communists made a joint declaration, promising to create 700,000 jobs and reduce the working week.

Violence returned to the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya, with fighting on the border between Russian police and Chechens. A bomb in a southern Russian railway station killed two people and injured 20.

Refugees out

Reuters

Zaire's rebels, previously obstructive of UN efforts to protect Rwandan Hutu refugees, changed tack: repatriate the lot within 60 days, they said. The UN made a start. Talks between the rebel leader, Laurent Kabila, and President Mobutu were arranged.

Burundi's mainly Tutsi army said it had killed at least 300 Hutu militiamen last month after they invaded from Tanzania. The army claimed the militiamen had killed 34 schoolchildren and seven teachers.

In Yemen, election results were brilliant for the main ruling party. They were rigged, said its minority partner, threatening to go to court.

In a joint appearance with King Hussein of Jordan on CNN television, Israel's prime minister said he had begun to ease the ban on Palestinian workers, and would look into the way East Jerusalem Arabs had been deprived of residency rights. He offered no concession on the Har Homa Jewish settlement, but said building for Arabs would also begin.

Taking stock

The latest strategic review of America's defence capabilities suggested that as many as 50,000 active-duty troops might be cut, especially in the army, to help pay for weapons such as computerised artillery systems and biological-weapons detectors.

The Chemical Weapons Convention, the world's most ambitious arms-control treaty, came into force. The United States ratified it just before the deadline. So did China. Russia, however, did not.

Reuters

A federal district judge in North Carolina, a big tobacco-growing state, upheld the power of the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco as a drug. At the same time, however, the judge ruled out controls on cigarette advertising.

Thirteen members of the self-styled Republic of Texas, which wants Texas to secede from the United States, held police at bay from a compound in Fort Davis.

Alexis Herman, a black woman, was confirmed as America's secretary of labour.

As Bill Clinton prepared for an official visit to Mexico and Central America, Latin Americans at a high-level meeting in Atlanta accused the United States of footdragging over pan-American free trade. Officials reaffirmed America's commitment. Newt Gingrich went along, but joined in Latin criticism of the United States' “certification” process in the drugs war.

With his party miles ahead in opinion polls, Canada's Liberal prime minister, Jean Chrétien, called an early general election for June 2nd, and then announced an easing of federal cuts in health-care spending.

Argentina's former economy minister, Domingo Cavallo, a loud and frequent campaigner against corruption, was indicted for misuse of his powers while a minister.

Reassurance

Hong Kong's future leader, Tung Chee-hwa, said in a television interview that a crackdown on democracy demonstrators, as happened in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, “will not happen” after the British colony reverts to China in two months. “Demonstration is part of our culture,” he said.

President Imomali Rakhmonov of Tajikistanwas seriously injured when a grenade was thrown at him in Khudjand. Two people were killed. The former Soviet republic is recovering from a civil war.

Budiman Sudjatmiko, the chairman of Indonesia's People's Democratic Party, was sentenced to 13 years in jail for “subversion”. The party has been banned from taking part in the country's general election on May 29th.

A quarrel in India'scoalition government was settled, bringing back Palaniappan Chidambaram, a reformist free-marketeer,as finance minister.